Name: Whole Wheat Bread with Potatoes
Ingredients: 1 gallon milk and water mixture (½ gallon milk, ½ gallon water); 2 ounces yeast; 2 ounces coarse sea salt; 8 ounces sugar; 8 ounces lard; 1 pound boiled and mashed potatoes

Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Whole Wheat Bread with Potatoes

Ingredients

1 gallon milk and water mixture (½ gallon milk, ½ gallon water)
2 ounces yeast
2 ounces coarse sea salt
8 ounces sugar
8 ounces lard
1 pound boiled and mashed potatoes

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Boil and mash the potatoes, reserving the water used for boiling.
Combine the potato water with ½ gallon of milk to make 1 gallon of liquid.
Dissolve the yeast in the liquid, then add sugar, salt, and lard.
Mix to form a slack dough.
Let the dough rise until it doubles in size.
Scale and shape the dough into pans.
Allow the dough to prove, then bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).
Brush the bread with water when done.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + potatotop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar):

Sweet potatofits about as well
Capsicumfits about as well
Potatothe original
Arrowrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Potato Bread124 recipes

Cornbread345 recipes

Bread Pudding336 recipes

Milk Bread Rolls242 recipes

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Whole Wheat Bread with Potatoes